Outtaverse part 9: Wave particle theory
by Madcap13
Summary: In LA, Angel has a problem understanding wave particle theory as explained by a new player in town.


Outtaverse part 9: Wave particle theory.

Summary : In LA, Angel has a problem understanding wave particle theory as explained by a new player in town.

Disclaimer : I was not a pioneer in the field of optics.

Feedback : I don't expect you to feedback if you don't know what wave particle theory actually is. If you don't, look it up. From a historical and possibly even metaphysical viewpoint, it's an interesting exercise in intellectual tolerance.

Warning : partial nudity on one scene and a dose of violence in others. It's easy to look away if it gets too hairy for you.

Recap : Not much has happened in LA yet, except the battle between Glory and the Scoobies in which Glory was suppressed and they lost Dawn and Tell.

OXOXOX

The Hyperion hotel, base of operations for Angel investigations in LA.

The three men of angel investigation came back from their hunt with a dour expression on their faces. Wesley and Gunn sat down on the couch in the foyer abd Cordelia looked up from the counter to notice their out of character mood.

"Oh god." Cordelia gasped, dropping the icepack she was holding to the back of her neck, "How many died?"

"None." Angel told her as he put his duster on a coat rack, "Do you want a lift home now?"

Cordelia raised an eyebrow, "Uh. Guys. You DID get it, didn't you?"

"We didn't get it." Gunn told her, disappointment thick in his voice, "We didn't have to."

"What do you mean you didn't have to?" Cordelia shouted at him, "The vision gave me extremely lurid details on just how dangerous this demon was. It likes to target entire families at once."

"Cordy, Relax." Angel calmed her, "Someone else already killed it."

"Oh." Cordelia said with a frown, "What do you mean someone else killed it? Who?"

Angel looked to Wesley and Gunn for a second and shrugged, "We don't know. Your vision was about five minutes too late."

"What! I was sent a useless headache?" Cordelia asked then yelled at the ceiling, "Thanks a fricken lot you guys!"

"Maybe not." Wesley said, thinking of something.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Cordelia asked, "Did I do something bad to you in a previous life?"

Wesley shook his head dismissively, "That demon wasn't just killed. It was dismembered and the remains where burnt. It was an execution. That suggests that it wasn't just another demon that killed it but that we are dealing with a rogue demon hunter."

"So, was it a rogue demon or someone who hunts demons?" Gunn asked, "Because I was never clear on how that works."

Angel shook his head, "If Cordy's vision was sent to alert us to some demon hunter in need then why wouldn't it just show them instead of some demon?"

"Like how she got a vision about me." Gunn agreed, "But now I want to meet this guy. Did you see how big those bones were?"

Wesley nodded, "It looked to be the remains of a velpath. They don't normally live this far west. Remarkably similar to Crocodiles but as Cordelia pointed out, they're quite evil. I've never fought one before but I hear they're quite hard to kill."

Angel shrugged, "Not with the right tools. If it wasn't for the fact that they killed for fun, you could almost consider them an animal. Also, I don't think one person killed it. Demon hunters almost always work in a group. This might be nothing but it could pay to check it out. Wesley, have you still got any connections from when you were a rogue demon hunting days?"

Wesley nodded in a so-so way, "Yes but you know where we are going to really find what we want, don't you?"

Angel sighed in defeat, "Yes. I know where."

OXOXOX

After dropping Cordelia off at home, the rest of Angel investigations dropped into Caritas.

Once inside they were assaulted by demon karaoke, something Angel had decided was the national sport in hell.

"Hey tall, dark and broody." Lorne greeted Angel or possibly all three of them, "You're here on business again, aren't you? You really should come by some time just to relax a little. Heaven knows you need it."

'Hi Lorne." said Angel, trying to be a little upbeat and failing, "Just dropped by to ask if you've heard of any new players in town."

Lorne smiled an amused grin, "LA is a big town. Lots of people coming through. Maybe if you were a little more specific."

"A demon hunter." Angel clarified, "You see, Cordelia got a vision about a velpath demon but before we got to kill it ourselves, someone beat us too it."

"The velpath?" Lorne asked, taking a sip from his seabreeze, "The hunter who bagged that bad boy was called Lucy, the scourge of the underworld."

"The scourge of the underworld? I thought I was the scourge of the underground." said Angel, a little hurt.

Lorne shrugged, "Demons are so fickle. I'm sure you'll be top dog again by the end of the month."

"How did you know about this?" Gunn asked, "It just happened."

"Gossip Darling. Some yahoo came in with a sob story about Lucy killing his pet velpath. I forget who. As I just said, lots of people coming through."

"What can you tell us about this Lucy character?" Wesley asked.

"She's trouble. A stone cold psycho. I hear that no one knows what she looks like because anyone who sees her, she kills."

"So how do they know her name is Lucy if no one's met her and lived?" Angel asked, "You see, my problem is I kill most of the bad guys I come across. That's why I'm nowhere nearly as well known as I should be. But she's obviously letting some go."

"I've never heard of a Lucy before." said Wesley, "She must be new. New and very skilled to take down a velpath by herself."

Lorne chuckled, "She didn't do it by herself. She works with Gunn's old knockarounds."

Gunn blinked in surprise when his colleagues looked at him, "Hey. Don't look at me like that. I've never heard of this girl before."

Angel sighed, "Well, Gunn. It looks like now is your chance to meet her."

OXOXOX

LA streets, near the "Found Boys" base of operations.

"And why are we doing this again?" Gunn asked his friends, "All because Cordelia was given a bad vision. Did you ever think that maybe the powers that be were just hedging their bets? Or is this because someone else pissed in your sandbox?"

Angel growled slightly then said "Gunn, the powers wouldn't send her a vision unnecessarily. I'm sure they know what sort of pain each one puts her through."

"And the fact that she took our kill has nothing to do with it?" Gunn asked again.

"And why am I here?" Wesley asked.

"In case we need your help." Angel told him, "Face it. You're useful."

"Maybe they should put that on his gravestone." one of the two found boys said as they jumped from the shadows with crossbows ready.

"Griff. Tucker." Gunn addressed his old troops.

"You brought cold cuts with you." said one of them, "Rhondell won't like that."

"We've just come for a sit down." Gunn assured them, "It's been too long."

"How do we know you're not a vampire?" the other asked.

Gunn held up a cross and a smile.

They stepped aside and let them pass but followed them from a distance until they were wordlessly allowed into the tiny abandoned apartment block which the found boys had claimed as their own.

As soon as they passed the threshold, Gunn said "Whoa. This place has changed."

Angel looked around and agreed with him but said nothing.

They had somehow rewired electricity back in and a few new support beams had been set in to support the floor above them. For some reason the Angel crew couldn't understand, the walls around the main entrance had been covered with metal plates.

"Hey Gunn." Rhondell greeted his old friend and then said a colder "Hey" to Wesley. He gave Angel the barest glare then asked Gunn "So what are you doing here?"

"Just checking up on you." Gunn told him then asked "Hey, what's with the door?"

Rhondell grinned, "Fire proofing. It's so we can do this."

He opened a panel on a beam then pushed the big red button inside and the twin door entrance was flooded with an intense but controlled burst of flames which came out of the piping which also surrounded the doors.

"Sweet!" Gunn laughed.

"Yeah. It is." Rhondell agreed as he closed the panel back up, "You remember little Freddy? Turns out he's no good at fighting but he loves working metal."

"And you got power." Gunn said.

"That's from this new girl called Lucy. It's just lights though. We've got a heap of these solar panels and batteries on the roof. Good thing about it is we can take it with us if we have to move."

"Lucy huh?" Gunn asked, looking to Angel for a second, "She's actually why we came."

"You're looking for Panda eyes?" Rhondell asked curiously then asked Angel, "You know her or something?"

Angel shook his head, "No but why do you call her panda eyes?"

"She's crazy on mascara. You'll see what I mean." Rhondell told them, them waved them over to follow him, "This way."

They followed him up the stairs to the training room, everyone giving Angel very cold looks as they went.

When they reached the training room, Gunn was blown away by the room. The floor was covered in hard mats and the walls were covered in full weapon racks and pieces of armor.

There was a training session on too, with a small crowd of onlookers. The participants were playing a particularly unorthodox version of Kendo while wearing cheap, bottom of the line bogu. Angel winced as he noticed instead of traditional himo, someone had cheapened the suits even more by installing Velcro straps.

The match seemed to be two students against a master.

One of the students thrust with a blunt wooden sword and the master batted it away and slammed into them with their shoulder in one smooth motion, knocking the novice onto his back with the momentum. The other student swung with a two handed attack which missed the target and the more experienced swordsman paid them back by giving them a heavy kick them in the back so that they flopped forward, facedown.

That was when Angel realized that they weren't practicing kendo at all. The protective bogu armor they wore were just to help protect against training injuries and had nothing to do with the martial arts they belonged to.

"Hey, Lucy." Rhondell called and the armored fighter that hadn't fallen turned, "Got a friend who wouldn't mind meeting you."

"How did I know that was our girl?" Wesley asked Angel who smiled slightly.

As the two other fighters got back up to walk off, she grabbed one of them and pulled his helmet close to hers and told them something which Angel missed with his enhanced hearing. Then she walked off, out of the matted area.

Rhondell frowned until the fighter she had talked to had whispered something to him.

"Hey, Angel." Rhondell called to Angel, "She wants to talk to you on the roof. Says it's personal."

"Okay." Angel replied with a frown of his own and left for the roof. As his friends moved to follow them, some of the found boys stopped them.

"Whoa there, she said the big guy goes alone." The armored boy told them, "Which doesn't mean you."

"What is this?" Gunn asked

Rondell shrugged, "Her words, not mine."

"She's in charge now?" Gunn asked.

Rondell shook his head with a smile, "She's not in charge. Everyone just does what she says."

Angel turned and told his men "I'll be okay."

Gunn didn't want to believe it was a trap but it was a little weird.

Seeing little other choice, Angel took the staircase one level up to the roof.

Once he reached the roof, he found a girl faced away from him, removing the last bits of her bogu.

"Well, well, well. If it's not the big guy with the girly name." a familiar voice came from the girl, "I knew we would meet eventually, I just didn't expect it would be this soon."

"Dawn?" asked Angel, wary and suspicious.

Turning around, Dawn told him "I go by Lucy now. You should know how that is. It's not like Angel was your given name."

But this wasn't the Dawn he knew. Her hair was darker, her face was paler and not only were her ears covered in earrings, she had two ring earrings set into her bottom lip. Also, she was wearing more mascara than recommended. Her clothes were of the bargain bin variety, something no Summers would stoop to and the mass of glittery bangles on her arms didn't make any sense at all to Angel.

Dawn sighed, almost theatrically, "I told myself it was a bad idea to stay in LA but I never listen to my own advice. I'm such a hypocrite. So why are you here?"

"You died." said Angel.

"That's the pot calling the kettle black."

Angel sniffed the air and said "You're not human."

"Pot-kettle-black. Now why are you here? Or a better question would be how did you find out and who have you told?"

"Cordelia got a vision of the velpath you killed tonight. We went to kill it, found it pre-killed, so we asked around and heard it was killed by you so we came to talk."

Dawn squinted at Angel, "So no one else knows I'm here?"

"No." Angel admitted, "But what happened to you? What are you?"

"I thought I knew but now I'm not so sure. But hey, who really ever knows who we are?"

"You're not telling me what I want to hear." Angel warned her.

"And I don't want you to be here at all so why don't you go back to your crummy hotel and leave me alone?"

"Not until you tell me what happened."

Dawn sighed, for real this time, "Okay. You want to know? Dawn was never Buffy's sister. Someone tricked you all to make you think that she was. They screwed with our memories to make her fit in. But Dawn's dead now so there's nothing more to worry about. How about we don't tell anyone else about this? They don't need to know that they were forced to be my family, do they?"

"I don't get it."

Dawn walked up to Angel and looked at him, "How can I say this in a way that you would understand? I was never human. Someone just made us all think that."

"I saw your body."

"So did I. That freaked me out a bit."

"So what are you really?"

"Thousands of years older than you." smirked Dawn.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"And what are you doing with the found boys?"

Dawn shrugged, "Just having some fun."

"You know you have to tell them about this."

Dawn sneered back, "The hell I do."

"If you won't, I will. Buffy needs to know too."

"Don't you get it? Your memories of me, they were manufactured. It was all a spell. You never nailed my dog to the front door. In fact, until right now, we've never even met before."

"But they'll be worried about you."

"They think I'm dead!"

"She still needs to know."

Dawn sighed, "So it's come to this."

Then, without warning, she whipped a chain out, shooting it at Angel with an underhanded throw. Angel only just dodged it by bending backwards slightly.

As the chain went taut, Dawn pulled the bald metal ball on the end back the way it came and put some swing on it this time so it spun around her and then aimed for Angels kneecaps. But this was all telegraphed for Angel. As the ball came his way, he jumped, stepping on the ball with one foot and then slamming his other foot on Dawn's center mass which knocked her flat over.

"Lucy!" one of the younger street hunters called from the roof entrance.

"I'm okay. It's okay. We're old friends. We do this all the time." Dawn told them as she dusted herself off and picked up a long metal pipe, "So can we have some privacy please while I beat the crap out of him?"

OXOXOX

Downstairs, Gunn was visibly distressed while Wesley contained his composure. They didn't come here to fight and yet by the sounds of it that was what Angel was doing right now.

The boy who interrupted them on the roof came back down and Rhondell approached him for answers.

"They're just practicing." the boy told them, "She said Angel used to date her sister."

Gunn face turned blank as he turned to Wesley then said "I know the story behind this is gonna to be whack."

The roof shook with the sound of something heavy falling over and Wesley winced, "I haven't heard of Angel dating anyone except the Slayer."

"Which one?" Gunn asked with interest.

"The blonde one, Buffy."

Gunn frowned, "And we know Lucy isn't her sister. Unless she has more than one."

"I'm impressed." Rhondell told Gunn as the sounds of fighting continued, "Most vamps don't last ten seconds with her."

OXOXOX

On the roof, Angel and Dawn were now circling, each with metal poles.

She had obviously had a lot of practice at this but she wasn't on the same level as Angel. It was a little troubling how she seemed to just shrug off his attacks though and Angel wasn't seeing any way out of this without causing some actual injury to Dawn. That was something he didn't want to do.

"You're such a hypocrite." Dawn shot at him.

"Me?" Angel asked, "What did I do?"

"You don't walk around with a sign around your neck saying vampire but you want me to."

"Hey! That's different. I don't keep my identity secret from those I work with."

"I know you better than that. I've read Buffy's diary. You were living two lives for a year or so before you told her the truth."

"That's not the same. I'm a vampire, she's a vampire slayer. I was just being .. prudent."

"Oh and coming out of the closet to a building full of demon hunters is a good idea for me?" Dawn asked, "This must be the lack of oxygen to your stupid brain talking."

"Let's go back to the part where you say that you're not Buffy's sister."

"What are you? My school counselor? I think I liked it better when I was hitting you."

With that said, Dawn pressed on the attack.

"I've noticed that you're not hitting me that much." Angel said almost calmly as he acted defensively, deflecting her swings with more ease than she put into them.

"Oh just shut up!"

Seeing an opening, Angel stepped forwards and swept her feet out from under her and when she hit the ground, he gently laid the end of his pipe down on her neck.

Dawn didn't take this as defeat though and her leg whipped up and knocked the pipe away, then she spun onto her feet and brought her own pipe up and clipped Angel across the back of the head.

Ever the professional, Angel winced from the pain but said "Nice shot. Where did you learn that?"

"One of the guys here actually. Now back to kicking your ass."

"I don't think so." Angel said, finally having lost his patience. He let the pipe slip through his hands until he was holding the end in both hands like a baseball bat and he swung it at Dawn's mid section. She brought her own pipe up to block it and it bent in half and knocked her over sideways.

Seeing that the pipe was ruined, she broke it in half over her knee and held one piece in each hand.

"Wait." Angel told her.

"So you're going to keep your mouth shut?"

"Quiet. I heard something."

"I didn't." Dawn told him as she looked around.

There was a slight sound of metal scraping on metal and Dawn tensed and said "Okay. I heard that."

She dropped one of the pipe sections then grabbed the ball and chain from the ground.

Dawn then launched the ball fast enough to dust a cinder block, apparently at thin air. But it was thin air that stopped the ball no less than eight feet from her.

Angel and Dawn looked at the ball hanging there for a second until two glowing yellow eyes flashed into view, followed by an armored and heavily armed figure.

"Oh shit." hissed Dawn, recognizing the alien for what it was.

Then it pulled on the ball with one hand, yanking Dawn forwards and hit her in the gut with the claw like spurs that covered his other hand.

"No!" Angel yelled in shock and anger.

OXOXOX

"You know how this works, Gunn." Rhondell told Gunn as he was held back from helping out Angel, "I'm just letting them settle their own shit."

Then they heard a short high-pitched yelp and the violence upstairs reached a new level. Even more dust shook from the ceiling and part of the dojo's ceiling fell through from a particularly strong strike that missed its mark.

"This is getting out of hand." Rhondell quickly conceded to Gunn, "It's time to break this shit up."

Then the fighting stopped suddenly and that's when everyone rushed for the ceiling.

OXOXOX

The Yautja, or Predator as the local task force had chosen to nickname them, was running across a completely different rooftop than the one it had uncloaked itself on. It was being chased by some sort of humanoid that was almost as deadly as itself.

It turned around for a second and readied its technologically advanced spear. Sure enough, Angel was running after it with a vengeance and a blur of wood which happened to be a baseball bat was thrown by the vampire.

The bat bounced off the aliens visor and stunned it for a second. After grunting and shaking its head clear, it followed through with the plan of throwing its spear and hopefully getting a kill.

As the spear sped towards Angel, he grabbed it and was struck with the recoil of the whirring inertial drive in the weapon. It forced him back several feet, until the edge of the rooftop. But eventually, he got a grip on the weapon and with his feet and stopped.

Impressed at the feat, the predator almost forgot to react. Almost but not quite.

It pulled out its net gun and shot at Angel. The net flew towards Angel but he swung the spear and it was brushed aside.

Growling inside its helmet, the predator decided that giving its weapon to its prey was perhaps the dumbest move it had ever made.

"Motherfucker." it swore.

Angel raised an eyebrow and tried to get a better idea of what he was fighting, "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

Obviously having confused its mark, the alien considered its options. Its sanctuary was just a building away but he didn't have the speed to outrun the vampire. Also, he was running out of weapons. All he had left was his blade discus and his shoulder mounted plasma caster. At this range, he could just blow Angel away but that wouldn't be honorable in the slightest. Although, this wasn't a normal human and this was his first time hunting in a city environment so a slight advantage might be acceptable.

Before he could line up a target, Angel attacked, lunging with the spear as a soldier would with a bayonet.

The hunter deflected the attack to the side with both hands and Angel brought the other end up, clipping it on the helmet. The predator growled in rage and brought it's hands back from the deflection and slammed them into Angel, tossing him across the roof so hard that he fell into a large air vent box and crumpled into it. Somehow Angel got stuck that way as he struggled to free himself.

Seeing this as his chance for a kill, the predator targeted Angel with his visor and pulled his head-seeking buzzsaw discus back for a real strong throw. Before he could throw it, Dawn jumped on his back and stabbed him in the ball joint where his arm met his shoulder.

It reared back and screamed in agony. Then it pressed its pain into a singular thought process and the shoulder mounted plasma launcher swiveled around and shot Dawn point blank in the chest, blowing her off him in a smoking heap.

Fighting through the pain, the yautja reached back with his free hand and wrenched the offending knife out of his back from where Dawn had slid it under his armor plates.

This had all given Angel the time to extricate himself from the aluminum he gotten stuck in and he faced the Yautja once again.

He stopped and backed off slightly when he heard its plasma launcher's capacitors hum with deadly potential. Instead of shooting him, the predator turned its head at the last moment and its caster launched a sparkling missile of energy which took out the outside wall of an apartment room.

The alien ran across the roof and jumped across the divide, just landing in the hole he just made.

"Wait!" Dawn yelled at Angel before he jumped after them, "Let him go!"

"Let him go?" Angel yelled at her, "After what he did to you."

"He's got a bomb."

Angel blinked at her and she added "A nuclear bomb. If he thinks he's going to die, he'll set it off."

"A nuclear bomb? You expect me to believe a demon would have a nuclear bomb?"

"Angel. Look at the weapon you're holding. Doesn't that seem a little high tech for your average demon? That's because it's an alien. They come down here every now and then to hunt."

"How do you know all this?"

"Thousands of years old, remember?" Dawn told him as she inspected the gaping, steaming hole in her right lung, "Oh man. Now I need a new jacket."

Figuring that she wasn't in any medical distress by the way she was acting, Angel asked "So you want us just to let him go?"

"After the beating we gave him, I think he'll move on. Either that or he'll just come back and hunt us at his own leisure after he's healed… I shouldn't have said that."

Dawn sighed as Angel jumped off the roof and chased after the alien. She looked over the edge of the roof to the hole in the wall below and winced.

"I think I'll take the elevator."

OXOXOX

Angel raced through the apartment hallway, following the hunters scent and still carrying the hunters spear.

He slid down the elevator cable and was surprised to find that at the bottom of the shaft was a hole, which he fell through. He was even more surprised to land right on top of an alien space ship.

Stealthily, he crept into the ship to find the predator taking its mask off. He was doing it slowly and with one hand as his other arm had been dead weight after Dawn stabbed him.

Seeing his chance, Angel pulled the spear back in preparation to throw it. Reacting to the action, the spear's inertial engines whirred to life. Angel looked at the spear in confusion and the Yautja spun around in shock that his prey had crept up on him. Too late, Angel threw the spear and it missed the hunter by a mile and lodged itself into one of the ships support beams instead.

"Pork-de Hooluge jubei." the creature growled, it's face now visible and its mandibles wide open in rage, "Yay-yenday sha ma M'di Hachak!"

It swung at Angel with it's only remaining melee weapon, the wrist blades on its working arm.

Angel jumped back once and then a second time while the alien attacked. On the third jump back, Angel was a little late and got two lines cut across his stomach for his trouble. Seeing that he needed to even the odds and get himself a weapon, he backed off and ran around the room until he found something that looked suspiciously like a massive pistol.

He snatched it up and aimed it at the predator. Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger.

The hunter stopped and cocked his head to the side, letting out a slight clicking sound. He stopped laughing when Dawn stabbed him in the back of the other shoulder. With a scream, he whirred around and backpedaled away from Dawn, dribbling out an incoherent babble in its alien language.

"What took you?" Angel asked, trying to act unsurprised.

"I took the long way." Dawn explained with a smile.

Angel smiled and then frowned when he looked at the Yautja, "That's a bit cruel."

Dawn shrugged and stood next to Angel, "I know it is. I almost feel bad for him."

While they weren't looking, the predator ignored the pain and flipped open the control panel on its wrist and activated the plasma caster still on its shoulder.

It locked on to the nearest heat signature, which was Dawn. Angel calmly asked her, "You don't mind if I hide, do you?"

"No. Not at all, you big chicken."

The plasma caster powered up quickly and then the yautja released its payload.

BOOM!

The plasma caster exploded and when the smoke cleared the Predator was down and out.

Dawn knelt over and picked up the remains of the knife she shoved into the short, squat barrel of the plasma launcher. With a hiss, she dropped the lump of metal, "Ow, hot."

"It's still alive." Angel told Dawn as he stood over the alien, "Should we kill it?"

Dawn shook her head, "Nah. I doubt he'll ever hunt again. I doubt his friends will trust him to clean their boots after he blew up his own bazooka."

Angel looked at Dawn oddly, "Friends?"

That was when the Yautja's "friends" chose to reveal themselves. Their optical shifting faded away and they surrounded the odd pair.

Out of nowhere, Dawn blurted out "Ellozde haloojubie setga-in merrsway aseigan Sa'yootde Loodtee Kalee duran h'mamedee guan an thwei. Dard-toodee hachak ana jeddhin."

"You can speak their language?" Angel asked.

"Not really. Just a few things. Mostly swear words."

"Why didn't you try to reason with him before?"

"I don't think he was in a talking mood."

The predators didn't react to what she said and Angel asked "What did you say?"

"I told them that their valiant warrior attacked my stupid man-whore and ruined our mating ritual. It's all a misunderstanding so I didn't kill him."

Angel eye's widened, "Why did you tell them that?"

"It seemed like such a good idea."

Then the aliens started a low, growling, clucking laugh.

"Are they laughing at us?" Angel asked.

"Actually they're laughing at their sorry excuse for an honorable warrior who got caught up in a domestic squabble. But this is good. I didn't know they had a sense of humor."

One of the more heavily armored yautja came forward and clasped Dawn on the shoulder and laughed the alien equivalent of a bellow.

"Kah'tre. H'ka-se Teyao te yeyinde." the elder told her then bent down to the unconscious youth and pulled out a small double sided, serrated knife from a holster near it's ankle. He presented this to her, "Muh'mohey ana Da'dhooti, thei-di guan. B'pi'de Gry'soupeh."

Four of the Yautja rudely hefted up their fallen comrade and took him away with them. Soon after, the rest followed, leaving Angel and Dawn alone.

"Hey. That's cool. He gave me this wicked knife." Dawn said, flashing it to Angel just as panels started closing all around the ship, "And OSSHIT! Run! Get out of here!"

Seeing little other choice, Angel followed Dawn, running out of the ship the way they came.

Once outside, Dawn yelled, "Keep running!"

As the engines thrummed to life behind them Angel now knew what the danger was and sprinted, leaving Dawn in the dust.

Now that the engine was prepped, the pilot put on the gas and the tunnel Dawn and Angel were in became one big exhaust pipe. Flames and smoke smothered them both and blew out the tunnel into the city.

After the smoke started clearing, Both of them were stumbling out of the tunnel and covered from head to toe in white soot.

A black helicopter flew overhead, beaming a blinding light on the two of them. It was soon scared off when a squadron of police cars came to see what the commotion was all about.

The police pulled in fast and approached them, Dawn making sure to hide her new knife away before they noticed it.

"What happened here?" one of the cops asked.

Angel turned to Dawn and said "Gas leak?"

Dawn coughed and nodded, "Yeah. Gas leak. Must've exploded."

"Hey, you two okay? You look like hell?" The police asked, concerned.

"Just need a shower." Dawn told him with a laugh. Angel quickly fell in line behind her and handed her his duster. Painfully, she put it on to cover the gory exit wound on her back. Then the two of them walked off.

"Are you okay?" Angel asked, "That wound looks well, to be totally honest, it looks instantly fatal."

Dawn smiled weakly at him, "Thanks for your concern but it's not fatal for me. I'll be fine in a few hours. Hey, could I borrow a shirt?"

Angel nodded, "Sure. But you have to explain everything to me."

"Everything? Might take a while. You might get stuck on wave particle theory."

"Huh?"

"That's a yes." Dawn explained, "Just don't blab to anyone that I'm here, okay?"

"Okay. For now."

OXOXOX

Later, Gunn and Wesley got back to Hyperion to find Angel searching through a box of Cordelia's clothes at the main desk. It was her emergency stash that she kept for all-nighters.

Seeing this, Gunn and Wesley approached him and waited for an answer.

Angel said "Hey." and went back to searching through the clothes, picking out a brown sweat top and checking its size.

"Hey Angel." Gunn replied back, "Thanks for having Lucy explain everything to Rhondell so he'd let us go without threatening our lives. It was really tense for a while there."

Angel barely nodded in response.

"Angel, is there something you want to tell us?" Wesley asked slowly, "Like why are you going through Cordelia's clothes."

"I'm getting some clothes for Dah-uh.. for Lucy." Angel explained.

"She's here?" Gunn asked, "Cos now I'm dying to meet this girl. You've gotta tell us what happened on the roof."

"We fought. A demon came. We beat him up. I won't bore you with the details."

"So where's she now?" Gunn asked, looking around.

"In my room." Angel replied then quickly added "But you can't go in. She's naked. That's why I'm borrowing from Cordy."

"Why is she naked in your room?" Wesley asked, trying not to jump to conclusions.

Angel looked him in the eye and said "Because her clothes were ruined and she's just taken a shower."

"Then get her dressed." Gunn laughed, "And back up here."

Angel paused and looked at his two trusted allies, "You're not going to meet her tonight."

"Why not?" Wesley asked, "I'm just as curious as Gunn."

"Because I think there was a reason why Cordelia didn't see Lucy in her vision. She's not ready to face the world just yet. I know it doesn't make sense but trust me on this. It's not time."

With that, Angel picked out a few other articles of clothing and left the two men in mystery as he opened the door to the basement and locked it behind him.

Angel came down and averted his eyes as Dawn sat on his bed, her bottom half naked but her torso completely covered in bandage to hold everything inside.

"Some clothes." Angel told her, handing them off to her.

"Thanks." Dawn replied as she slipped them on, "I didn't expect you to be the shy type."

With his back to her, he said "So you've even more piercings under your clothes."

Dawn chuckled lowly, "Yeah. After I got my mouth done, I found that I really liked it. So I got a few more."

"Why?" Angel asked, "Why do you wear make up like that and paint your fingernails black? You know Spike paints his nails black."

"Does he?" Dawn asked, slightly embarrassed, "I didn't notice. But I do it because it gives me respect. Unlike looking like a sixteen year old."

"You look like a clown."

"And I suppose that cool leather duster you wear is to keep you warm. Seriously should think about wearing your underwear on the outside. It would finish off the whole comic book vibe. Anyway, you can turn around, I'm done."

Angel turned around and Dawn was now wearing a loose long sleeved brown shirt and some navy blue pants which didn't match her steel-toed boots at all.

"Hey, did you hear about why Riley dumped Buffy?" Dawn asked, trying to avoid a topic.

Angel nodded, "Yes. She told me. Now about you."

"Yeah. Me." Dawn said slowly, obviously the topic she had in mind, "I'm not who you think I am."

"So who are you?"

"As far as I can figure out, I'm both Dawn and Tell."

Angel squinted at her, "Tell? You mean that demon boy?"

Dawn nodded, "When you were fighting Glorificus on the streets, I-uh-he moved into the hotel and killed the Seeker. But not before the seeker could stab me. I was dying and then-then I was like this. I've got both their memories although I feel more like Dawn than Tell. I didn't realize it but tell doesn't have much of a personality."

"So that's why you knew how to talk to those aliens."

Dawn nodded, "That's right."

"And how you know how to fight."

"Actually, I'm learning how to fight all over again. This body is so different. A lot heavier."

"What was that you said about not being Buffy's sister before?" Angel asked, sitting down next to her.

Dawn sighed, "I'm not. Dawn wasn't. She was this key thing and everyone was hypnotized to think that Dawn was her sister. Now Dawn's dead but I'm still the key."

"Dawn's not dead."

"It's best this way. Mom, uh, I mean Joyce doesn't have to know what's happened to me. The Dawn she loved died that day at the penthouse. That was the Dawn they loved. Me? I'm just trying to make a brand new start on life."

"If you wanted a brand new start, why did you stay in LA?"

"Stupid, I guess."

Angel smiled, knowing the real reason, "It's because you're not ready to let go of your old life. You want to stay within a few hours of Sunnydale, just in case."

"You're reading too much into this."

"No I'm not."

Dawn growled, "Remind me sometime to nail your dog to your front door."

"I said I was sorry about that. Um, do you feel.. schizophrenic?"

"You'd think so but I don't. It's weird."

The two ex-humans sat there on the bed for a moment of quiet until Dawn said "You know what I'm really pissed off about?"

"What?"

"I can't believe I died a virgin."

"Modern society puts too much focus on sex." Angel stated.

"Maybe but that's really sad."

Angel shrugged then smiled, "Hey. You want to know who else died a virgin?"

"Who? You?"

"Me? Oh hell no. Granted, I usually had to pay for it."

Dawn snorted, "Now I know you're making that up."

"Spike died a virgin. Funny, isn't it?"

"Spike!" Dawn laughed out loud, "But wouldn't he be like thirty-something?"

Angel nodded, "Why did you think he's so angry all the time?"

"Oh man. Now that's funny. But hey, I should get back. The boys are probably worried about me. Will you keep my secret?"

Angel nodded, "For now. I still think you should tell them."

"No point really." Dawn replied as she got up and moved to leave.

"Not that way." Angel told her, "Take the sewer exit. Gunn and Wes could still be out there."

Dawn stopped and turned around to the sewer exit, "Okay. Thanks."

"Dawn, we should keep in touch. You don't have to do this by yourself."

"Do what? The same thing I've always done? Whatever. I'm off."

"I'll come by next week." Angel told her.

Dawn stopped mid-way out of the exit for a second then nodded and left, closing the hatch behind her.

Letting out a sigh of useless air, Angel got up and walked over to where he put the knife they were given by the Yautja.

"Aliens." Angel said, shaking his head, "What's next? Buffy turning evil?"

He frowned at that thought then flicked off the light and went to bed, thinking no more of it.

OXOXOX

FIN

Now this is the shortest one yet and I couldn't figure out how to end it properly but here it is anyway. Now onto the next one. Yay, yippee, etc,etc.


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